Catfish

A “Catfish” is a person who creates a fake profile online and pretends to be someone they are not by using someone else pictures and information. These “Catfish” use social media sites such as, “Facebook” and “twitter”, usually with the intention of getting other people or a person to fall in love with them. “MTV” and the producers of the 2010 documentary film “Catfish” send Nev Schulmon and his friend and film maker Max Joseph to help couples who have never met in real life. They want to know if the person they have had a relationship with and fallen in love with is the real deal or if they are a “Catfish”. Some couples have been together for a few months, while others have been together for years. This show relates to sociology in many different ways. A couple ways it relates to sociology is by symbolic interactionism, values, and sociology. All of these concepts can be seen in every episode. Values are the standard by which people define what is desirable, undesirable, good or bad, beautiful or ugly. This concept fits perfect into the show Catfish because people are expecting to meet who they meet online and 80 percent of the time they are not who they say they are. People fall in love with with pictures and once they start talking to them they find out if they have anything in common and desirable to be around. Nev, who has fallen victim to a “catfish,” claims that he has received requests from people asking him for his help in determining whether or not their online significant others are lying or telling the truth about their identity Each episode is a different couple with a different story and Nev flies out to wherever they live and does a background check and research to uncover the truth about them. He contacts the other person to get a meeting set up so they both can finally meet for the first time and documents the outcome. Schulman says, “its not all about pulling the rug out from under people”. This comment means if he finds dirt on the people he try’s breaking the news to them before hand so they are aware of who they really are meeting. After the Moute Te o boax, ratings soared to 2.8 million reviewers, and “Catfish,” became part of the rational relation. Schulman, 28, whose own fake digital romance was featured in the 2010 film that inspired the series, says everyone can be a victim. “Do not take everything at face values.” This comment makes everyone sit back and think about online dating and if its really worth the risk of falling in love with someone that you have never met before. Joseph, 31, says, “ask to Skype, do a Google search, anything to find out more information about them”. By doing all of these things it can re ensure that who your talking to is really who they say they are. Online dating offers the dream of removing the historic obstacles to true love. Some examples are time, space, parent sitting on the porch with a shotgun on his lap and an expression that says no boy is good enough for my daughter. Online dating has increased and become popular over the past couple years because it is easier to meet online than it is in person. Online dating has so many risks, because you never know who your really talking too till you meet them in person. Symbolic interactionism fits perfectly into this show because it shows how people do not communicate face to face as much and use social media and texting to communicate with. As the world changes so does the dating system. Every religion has different rules they have to follow but now a days a lot of people are breaking these rules and doing what makes them happy instead of making their parents and religion happy. This concept can be seen as sociology. The scientific study of society and human behavior. This is seen as sociology because every culture has different standards to follow when it comes to dating and they have studied which concepts work better than others. Overall there are a lot of different aspects that can be seen in this show that relate to sociology and how over time things change. The three main concepts that can be seen are sociology, symbolic interactionism, and values. All of these concepts fit perfectly into sociology and everyday life.

Reference Sheet

Sociology textbook chapters 1 – 3
People magazine February issue
Catfish television show